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Update a JBoss Installation from 7.3 to 7.4

The following steps describe how to update the Camunda artifacts on a JBoss AS
7 and Wildfly 8 server in a shared process engine setting. For the entire
procedure, refer to the update guide. If not
already done, make sure to download the Camunda BPM 7.4 JBoss distribution
or Camunda BPM 7.4 Wildfly distribution. In the following instructions
$APP_SERVER should be replaced with either jboss or wildfly, depending on
the used application server.

The update procedure takes the following steps:

Update the Camunda BPM Modules

Update Optional Camunda BPM Modules

Maintain Process Engine Configuration

Maintain Process Applications

Update Camunda Web Applications

Whenever the instructions are to replace a module, make sure to delete the previous version of the module first to avoid orphan jars.

Updated Wildfly Version

The pre-built Camunda 7.4 distribution ships with Wildfly 8.2.1.Final, whereas 7.3 comes with Wildfly 8.2.0.Final.
The patch version of Wildfly contains some security bug fixes and component updates.
Camunda 7.4 is supported on Wildfly 8.1 and 8.2 such that an update is not required when migrating from 7.3 to 7.4.

Should you want to update Wildfly along with Camunda, perform the following steps either before or after updating Camunda:

Copy all your Camunda-related modules from $WILDFLY_HOME/modules to the new Wildfly server’s module-directory.

Apply all modifications to Wildfly configuration files such as standalone.xml to the files located in the new Wildfly server’s directory.

Undeploy all process applications and copy them to the new Wildfly server’s directory for redeployment.

1. Update the Camunda BPM Modules

Replace the following modules from the folder $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ with their new versions from the folder $APP_SERVER_DISTRIBUTION/modules/:

org/camunda/bpm/camunda-engine

org/camunda/bpm/$APP_SERVER/camunda-$APP_SERVER-subsystem

org/camunda/bpm/model/camunda-bpmn-model

org/camunda/bpm/model/camunda-cmmn-model

org/camunda/bpm/model/camunda-xml-model

Add or replace (if already present) the following modules:

org/camunda/bpm/dmn/camunda-engine-dmn

org/camunda/bpm/dmn/camunda-engine-feel-api

org/camunda/bpm/dmn/camunda-engine-feel-juel

org/camunda/bpm/model/camunda-dmn-model

org/camunda/commons/camunda-commons-logging

org/camunda/commons/camunda-commons-typed-values

org/camunda/commons/camunda-commons-utils

2. Update Optional Camunda BPM Modules

In addition to the core modules, there may be optional artifacts in $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ for LDAP integration, Camunda Connect, Camunda Spin, and Groovy scripting.
If you use any of these extensions, the following update steps apply:

LDAP Integration

Replace the following modules from the folder $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ with their new versions from the folder $APP_SERVER_DISTRIBUTION/modules/, if present:

org/camunda/bpm/identity/camunda-identity-ldap

Camunda Connect

Replace the following modules from the folder $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ with their new versions from the folder $APP_SERVER_DISTRIBUTION/modules/, if present:

org/camunda/bpm/camunda-engine-plugin-connect

Camunda Spin

Replace the following modules from the folder $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ with their new versions from the folder $APP_SERVER_DISTRIBUTION/modules/, if present:

org/camunda/spin/camunda-spin-core

org/camunda/spin/camunda-spin-dataformat-json-jackson

org/camunda/spin/camunda-spin-dataformat-xml-dom

org/camunda/bpm/camunda-engine-plugin-spin

Groovy Scripting

Replace the following modules from the folder $APP_SERVER_HOME/modules/ with their new versions from the folder $APP_SERVER_DISTRIBUTION/modules/ if present:

org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-all

3. Maintain Process Engine Configuration

This section describes changes in the engine’s default behavior. While the change is reasonable, your implementation may rely on the previous default behavior. Thus, the previous behavior can be restored for shared process engines by explicitly setting a configuration option.

Task Query Expressions

As of 7.4, the default handling of expressions submitted as parameters of task queries has changed. Passing EL expressions in a task query enables execution of arbitrary code when the query is evaluated. The process engine no longer evaluates these expressions by default and throws an exception instead. This behavior can be toggled in the process engine configuration using the properties enableExpressionsInAdhocQueries (default false) and enableExpressionsInStoredQueries (default true). To restore the engine’s previous behavior, set both flags to true. See the user guide on security considerations for custom code for details.
This is already the default for Camunda BPM versions after and including 7.3.3 and 7.2.8.

User Operation Log

The behavior of the user operation log has changed, so that operations are only logged if they are performed in the context of a logged in user. This behavior can be toggled in the process engine configuration using the property restrictUserOperationLogToAuthenticatedUsers (default true). To restore the engine’s prior behavior, i.e., to write log entries regardless of user context, set the flag to false.

Furthermore, with 7.4 task events are only logged when they occur in the context of a logged in user. Task events are accessible via the deprecated API TaskService#getTaskEvents. If you rely on this API method, the previous behavior can be restored by setting the flag restrictUserOperationLogToAuthenticatedUsers to false.

4. Maintain Process Applications

This section describes changes in behavior of API methods that your process applications may rely on.

5. Update Camunda Web Applications

Update REST API

The following steps are required to update the Camunda REST API on a JBoss/Wildfly instance:

Undeploy an existing web application with a name like camunda-engine-rest

Download the REST API web application archive from our Maven Nexus Server. Alternatively, switch to the private repository for
the enterprise version (User and password from license required). Choose the correct version named $PLATFORM_VERSION/camunda-engine-rest-$PLATFORM_VERSION.war.

Deploy the web application archive to your JBoss/Wildfly instance.

Update Cockpit, Tasklist, and Admin

The following steps are required to update the Camunda web applications Cockpit, Tasklist, and Admin on a JBoss/Wildfly instance:

Undeploy an existing web application with a name like camunda-webapp

Download the Camunda web application archive from our Maven Nexus Server.
Alternatively, switch to the private repository for the enterprise version (User and password from license required).
Choose the correct version named $PLATFORM_VERSION/camunda-webapp-jboss.war.

Deploy the web application archive to your JBoss/Wildfly instance.

LDAP Entity Caching

It is possible to enable entity caching for Hypertext Application Language (HAL) requests that the Camunda web applications make. This can be especially useful when you use Camunda in combination with LDAP. To activate caching, the Camunda webapp artifact has to be modified and the pre-built application cannot be used as is. See the REST Api Documentation for details.